Anthropologist David Graeber undertakes the first detailed ethnographic
study of the global justice movement. The case study at the center of
Direct Action is the organizing and events that led to the one of the
most dramatic and militant mass protests in recent years--against the
Summit of the Americas in Québec City. Written in a clear, accessible
style (with a minimum of academic jargon), this study brings readers
behind the scenes of a movement that has changed the terms of debate
about world power relations. From informal conversations in coffee shops
to large "spokescouncil" planning meetings and tear gas-drenched street
actions, Graeber paints a vivid and fascinating picture.
Along the way, he addresses matters of deep interest to anthropologists:
meeting structure and process, language, symbolism and representation,
the specific rituals of activist culture, and much more. Starting from
the assumption that, when dealing with possibilities of global
transformation and emerging political forms, a disinterested,
"objective" perspective is impossible, Graeber writes as both scholar
and activist. At the same time, his experiment in the application of
ethnographic methods to important ongoing political events is a serious
and unique contribution to the field of anthropology, as well as an
inquiry into anthropology's political implications.
David Graeber is an anthropologist and activist who teaches at the
University of London. Active in numerous direct-action political
organizations, he has written for Harper's Magazine and is the author
of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Towards an Anthropological
Theory of Value, and Possibilities.
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